Looking to the future

I enrolled in 401k benefits today and am slated to speak to a personal banker about more retirement programs sometime soon. As with my dental insurance, I don't get to participate until the first of July, but the wheels are in motion.

As I plan for my future, a song comes to mind. It is a song that I had almost forgotten until last weekend when Mike and I were rolling around town listening to naught but hair metal on KDKB. This week's anthem is by a band who is in the Guiness Book of World Records as having put on the loudest show. That band is Helloween. The song I have selected is (appropriately enough) "Future World".

Religion, thy name is Iron Maiden

The past six days have gone by very quickly. In retrospect, it seems like the elapsed time was much longer. I attribute this to the insane amount of crap I have been up to.

Mike's visit was a success. He and the local crew seemed to get along pretty well. He saw his share of women he would classify as hot, and it is looking like he feels Arizona is a solid possibility for residence. His hopes of seeing what a triple digit day feels like were never realized. We were 110 last Tuesday, but when he got here on Thursday, it was 58 and raining. Friday wasn't much better. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were beautiful and were like unto early April with highs in the mid 80s.

We saw the new Indiana Jones movie on Friday. Though there were some nostalgic elements to the acting, the movie failed to deliver the full glory of what is otherwise an incredible series. I mean, aliens? Really?

The other days of the visit mostly involved going out to random places and people's houses. We met Mike B and his wife Friday night. Saturday, Mike insisted I show him the canal I drove my car into four years ago coupled with a stop at Jeremy's place. That evening we met Jeff and Roxy for some karaoke. Sunday was a day largely spent with the family. Monday began with breakfast at AZ Bread Co. where we were joined by MikeB and John. Afterwards we made haste back to Mike's house for some Rock Band. Later in the afternoon we were joined by Brad had a barbecue.

After another round of Rock Band we headed out to Cricket Pavillion to take in Iron Maiden. The experience was nothing short of religious. They managed to well up emotions no band has been able to do for years. I think it is because they played only their classic stuff. The most recent album represented was from 1991 (Fear of the Dark). There were a few songs I would have liked to hear that weren't played, but they played nothing I didn't want to hear. In fact, they were on a tear for a while with songs that were nothing short of the best they have ever written. They did a "Wasted Years" - "The Number of the Beast" - "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" run that could very well be the best 25 minutes of my life. Musically speaking that is. They are without a doubt the best live band there ever was. They don't just play music, they put on a show. Even the opening act, Lauren Harris (daughter of Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris) put on a good visual act. Granted the music paled by comparison, but she and her band were very energetic. So they score points for that.

Today, Mike left me to go back to depressing Maryland. In fact, he is on the plane as I type this. The talk right now puts his potential move date to Arizona somewhere around mid October.

I started my job with Wells Fargo today. The job still seems great. I met my immediate supervisor, and he was as cool as any of the other supervisors I have met thus far. This seems really good. I get 20 days of PTO per year (that is a full month) and then six corporate holidays. 26 days off work in a year to start is not a bad way to go. I also get benefits starting July 1. It has been almost a decade since I have had dental insurance. I am going to finally get those fillings and root canals I have always wanted! Well, hopefully not the latter, but there is no doubt I will recieve the former in quantity. Oh joy!

End of an Era

Well, I am on my final stretch. My time of unemployment will come to an end on Tuesday next. I will finish this chapter of my life in the best possible way. With Mike coming out to visit and an Iron Maiden concert on Memorial Day, the time will pass quickly. Maybe too quickly. While I am excited to get back to work with a solid company, I also desire to pace myself between now and then. I haven't seen Mike for about a year and a half, so there is a good amount of catching up to do.

As I have previously mentioned, his visit here is partially to check the area out as a place to live. In the times he has visited, he hasn't taken such a critical look at things. While I am confident he will get along famously with my friends here (I tend to choose the same type of friend wherever I go), I am worried about how he will take the heat. The weather calls for decent temperatures, but as we Arizonans know, the weather has a tendency to whimsically change course. On the other hand, maybe at least one day of triple digit temperatures would do him good. this would lend to an informed decision on his part.

Well, I will not be posting for another several days probably, so here is this week's anthem. I am staying with Iron Maiden, and sticking with the live show in Rio. This is the other favorite of Mike's called "The Number of the Beast".

You know what tastes really good when you haven't had it in a couple years?

Applesauce.

Employed at last

Some of you may have heard that I got an "accounting assistant" job in Phoenix this week. Turns otu, there was no accounting department to assist at this job. Instead, this job turned out to be a front desk receptionist gig that would have been better suited for a 19 year old girl looking for some dull work and easy money. A thirty year old accounting major has no place in such a position. That being said, my tenure lasted all of an hour and a half. Something came up while I was at work that caused me to leave. What resulted from all of that was a series of interviews with various different companies. So who is the winning bidder? That would be Wells Fargo (for ye on the east coast, they are one of the largest banking presences around these parts).

Theoretically, on May 27th, I will beging my duties in their fraud department. If my background paperwork isn't recieved in time, then I will start on June 9. Either way, I have been offered employment. I got the call not 30 minutes after I left the Wells Fargo campus. I am not starting in a department that is accounting or finance related, but that is okay. I spent a month being picky and it got me nowhere. Since I have no experience in the field, it makes good sense for me to get in with a company that specializes in finance, work for whatever department I can, establish credibility with the company, and move up from there. The campus offers a lot of the more cosmetic features one would hope to have at work. The building is gorgeous on the inside with high ceilings on each of their four floors, the common area is set up like a restaraunt, and the personnel are all great. The hiring managers I met with didn't try to intimidate me, which speaks volumes about the culture around there. I have a friend that manages in the IT department in the adjacent building and he assures me it is a great place to work.

In the meantime, I am going to attend as many real estate classes as possible to expedite that process. Then Mike comes out on Thursday. Since I have a job forthcoming, I will be able to afford to do stuff. I am not sure exactly what, but I have the feeling a trip up north is called for. He hasn't seen Sedona or the Grand Canyon yet. Now is still a good time to go and even get some hiking in. I believe my buddy Brad from the dojo will be getting in on that. Of course, there are also good hiking trails along the Mogollon Rim, so who knows what I will do...

This weekend, Brett Varnum is in town teaching a full weekend of seminars. I went last night and recieved bruises on my neck as souevnirs. This guy is amazing. We spent all night working on wrecking necks. We focused on chokes, strikes, and nerve pinches. In an effort to learn the style, I willingly volunteer to feel what some of these things feel like. So I got clocked to the stereo sound of his thumb knuckles right across my jugulars. Just in case you were wondering, it hurts like hell.

Today, I won't be going to the seminar because it is my nephew's 12th birthday party. So I will be whisked away to beautiful Laveen to spend some time with my brother and his family. I should be back in time for the dinner get together with the seminarees.

I believe I will be returning to the seminar tomorrow.

Thank you, Harmonix

I recieved my latest copy of "Gameinformer" magazine in the mail yesterday. Right on the cover is some concept art from Guitar Hero 4. It immediately caught my attention and I flipped directly to the ad. Guitar Hero 4 on its own would have been enough to catch my attention, but the new features are what caught my undivided attention.

Harmonix recently blessed this Earth with a little game called "Rock Band". The success of this game has made many people forget that Guitar Hero even exists. The folks of Neversoft seem to have caught onto this and have included drums and vocals in the next installment. It gets better - there is also going to be a feature to create your own song, a luxury not afforded by Rock Band. It gets better still - the drums will be more realistic. I wish I could find the picture online, but let me tell you, the picture provided in the article nearly caused me to cream myself. The setup allows for more realistic playing. The green, red, and blue pads are drums, the yellow and orange are cymbals set in a position that makes the kit instantly superior to its "Rock Band" counterpart. There is also a kick pedal, so there will be one extra drum.

This is exciting to me, and I hope my excitement does not prove to be unfounded. Rock Band's only advantages over the GH franchise are twofold: more song selection (with plenty of weekly downloads, something GH has trouble with) and the drum/vocal aspect. Otherwise, GH has better playability, and less choppy graphics. If Neversoft can get the same type of song list going with plenty of ongoing downloadable content without sacrificing its other superior qualities, people may just forget about Rock Band. That is until Harmonix develops a sequel with even more awesome additions.

All in all, I thank you. Harmonix, for getting the ball rolling. Though it seems Neversoft is on the fastrack to perfecting what you started.

A brief rundown on GH4 is:

*Full Band
*Players can choose to be the lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bassist, drummer, or vocalist on any given song. Rhythm is something RB does not offer.
*Create-a-song feature that may or may not involve uploading your favorite songs directly into the console to be converted into a GH song. Cool as that is, who has the time for it? That must take hours to do.
*Just like in RB, characters and bands can be created from scratch. Or, the band can be made from the classic list of characters. Mix and match.
*Drums with the cymbals the place cymbals should be.

Well, it is Thursday. In exactly one week my buddy, Mike, from Maryland will be coming to visit. This will be his third visit to Arizona, but the first during the warmer season. He was initially planning to visit in July or so because he wants to know what our summers are like. Since he is considering a move out here, it was his goal to know what me may be in for. However, the great band, Iron Maiden, caused him to move his plans back a couple months. So here we are. In honor of Mike's visit, I have decided to make this week's anthems one of his favorite metal songs of all time. This is a ditty by Iron Maiden entitled, "Run to the Hills". This version is from a live show they played a few years ago in front of over 750,000 screaming Brazillians:

Accomplishments

The past three weeks have been hell. I have never gone through this in my life. I have had only three interviews with hiring managers anywhere thus far, and I found out why. I am limiting myself to accounting type jobs that won't take me in strictly because I haven't the experience. This was told to me in so many words by a prospective employer. At least they had the decency to explain it. So here I am looking at bank and data entry jobs to give myself the credibility to move up. I put in several applications with JP Morgan Chase today. The jobs range from teller to corporate positions. At this point, as long as I make at least $12/hr, I will be safe to live life as usual. Not having a car payment has really opened my options.

I went in to a couple staffing agencies here in town and they have nothing. I am at the top of their list, but as of now, there aren't a whole lot of jobs I qualify for open. Here is why that is: a lot of employers are backing away from agencies and simply relying on their HR departments to do the hiring. Why pay someone else to do something you already pay someone in-house to do?

There is a significant job fair at the Cardinal's Stadium on Wednesday. There will be a couple hundred employers there. Hopefully, they will be hiring managers and not just HR grunts. It would be optimal that I go there not because I have to. Having a job offer will allow me to approach this event more optimistically.

I found out today that I have finally been approved for unemployment. So there may be some income soon. Other than that, I have had two sources of income, and they were one-shot deals. The first was an eight dollar check from the bank we were making payments to. That is the amount we overpaid on our vehicle. The other source was more significant. Mike and I went to a Magic pre-release to sell my card collection off. Since we don't play much anymore, and when we do we use printed cards from the internet, it seemed right. So that was a cool $80 I desparately needed. That paid for a week of groceries.

There are some positives to be taken from this. Apparently I needed to be taught some sort of lesson. I believe I have learned it. I have also gotten to spend a lot of time with the family. Lately this time has been straining me. Not because of my family, but more because being around them reminds me of how I need to protect them, and I feel I am not doing that very well right now. I wasn't even when I worked for the range. My baby has a high lead level, no doubt from my working there. Anyway, other accomplishments have included my sharpening my interview skills and beating Lou on "hard" in Guitar Hero 3.

Tomorrow I begin my real estate training. I begin with my contract writing and fingerprinting. I have lately noticed the doors a real estate license opens up, so maybe I just need to plug at that, then get a job. If Career Builder is any indication, the combination of that license and an accounting degree = big money.

This week's anthem is totally coming from out my posterior. I happened to come across this beauty the other day and remembered how great Cinderella was when they wanted to be. This week's anthem is called, "Shake Me".

The hint of sunlight

The Rush concert was last night, and I have to say that it was one of the better performances I have seen from them in a while. I will get to that later.

First, I am happy to report that the bleak job outlook just got 1000 times better. A couple weeks ago, Mike reccommended a staffing agency I quickly appliesd with. One thing I didn't know (and their website says nothing about) is that I needed to actually go in to their office. So I did and set up an interview for Tuesday. In the meantime, I am going to take their skills eveluation online from a link they are to send to my email.

I also went to a job expo for Orbital. They are an aerospace engineering firm that develops launch technologies such as satellite placement and missiles/missile targeting systems and the targets for test runs. I am a far cry from an aerospace engineer, but they do have a large finance department. I impressed the two people I spoke with initially, and I look forward to a callback for a second interview on their Chandler campus.

Yes, things are looking up, and my positivity is and confidence in my employability has drastically increased.

Anywho, the Rush show was awesome (as I noted before). The group expanded by two members. Last year, it was just Mike, Jeff, and I. We added another Jeff of the original Jeff's acquaintance, and Brad, a buddy of mine from the dojo. They did play this week's anthem as I thought they might, but they also played some songs that, while they were played last time around, were still surprising to hear. Songs like "Digital Man" that define in my mind the genius of their musical thought process brought back the feeling of old as I discovered this band.

Alex Lifeson was once again the clown he has become ever since the Counterparts tour. He is always a riot and is quickly becoming my favorite member of the band. Some of the antics he was doing on stage (easily three hundred feet away from where we were) were almost exact-yet-sarcastic renditions of the antics of a guy right in front of us. Clearly high on ecstasy, this dude's dance moves were almost more entertaining than the band. My group got a kick out of him. By the end of the show, this guy had cleared a radius of about ten feet around himself. Any closer to this guy and someone would get hit. It is always fun to watch a guy mosh alone to music that doesn't merit such an activity.

I also learned an important fact about Tom Sawyer...

A modern day warrior
His name's Tom Sawyer!
He floated down a river
On a raft with a black guy!